Harvesting peachSmallholders in the desert region of Huaral depend on irrigation cooperatives to water their crops. For ten years one coop association has been developing an information system based on telecentres to help them to make informed agricultural decisions. But the system is being under-utilised and they decided to find what was going wrong. Using APC’s Gender Evaluation Methodology (GEM) they found that older people and women over 40 were being left behind. While decision-making spaces are still mainly all-male, at least some issues identified by women are now on the table.

Grameen Gyan Abhiyan (Rural Knowledge Network) is a multi-stakeholder alliance advocating the use of ICTs to empower rural communities through the establishment of rural knowledge centres. This case study illustrates planning, implementation and development of a mass movement-oriented advocacy campaign to bring ICT access to rural India.

“Training in ICT skills gets the community to start thinking differently and to consider the sources of income available to them more clearly. From a commercial standpoint, they become aware of the fact that their products have to meet certain standards of quality in order to be sold at higher prices,” says Aura Elena Plaza from Villa Paz, an Afro-Colombian community in the Cali region. Dafne Plou reports for APCNews on her first-hand experience of the impact access to information has had on the lives of people in remote villages in Mali, Africa and Cali, Colombia.